Using nonstandard vertical alignment

By default, Excel vertically aligns the baseline of all your data entries with the bottom edges of their cells. In certain cases, you can improve the look of the spreadsheet by increasing the height of rows by using other vertical alignment options. When you select the Top or Center vertical alignment options, you often have to manually increase the height of the rows before you can see the effect that these options have on the vertical positioning of the data entries. When you select the Justify option or the Distributed vertical alignment option, Excel automatically increases the height of the rows as needed to wrap the text onto several different lines in order to maintain the current column widths.

Instead of using a blank row to separate your table titles from the first row of data, apply the Top or Center Vertical alignment option to the cells with the titles and then manually increase the height of their rows. If you don't want to change the vertical alignment of the titles, you create a sense of vertical space simply by increasing the height of the first row of data.